Patient was educated on bladder retraining which is a behavior therapy to treat urge incontinence. The main elements of this bladder retraining process are as follows:
- The goal of bladder retraining
- The goal of bladder retraining is to gradually increase the time interval between emptying the bladder and the amount of urine the bladder can accommodate, thus overcoming the urge.
- Continue the plan until the interval between two successive acts of voiding is at least 3 hours.
- Following a fixed schedule for bladder emptying
- To start with, try to empty the bladder at a defined interval, every one hour or every two hours.
- For example, if the set interval is one hour, empty the bladder at one-hour interval, even though the urge for urination is not felt.
- If the urge is felt before the set interval time, try overcoming the urge using relaxation techniques, such as, deep breathing and relaxation.
- Starting slowly
- Try to empty the bladder at this set interval only for one whole week.
- Maintain a diary indicating your bladder activity and restroom trips.
- Maintaining your voiding interval for one week is an accomplishment and marking it in your diary can act as a positive reinforcement, to consider increasing the voiding interval time by 15 minutes for the next week.
- Not getting discouraged
- Do not be discouraged, if the goal is not met.
- Continue to empty the bladder at the same interval for another week and evaluate your results marked in the diary at the end of the week.
